US and China pick their fights


By Jian Junbo
Asia Times
Jan 26, 2010


SHANGHAI - The United States' relations with China during President Barack Obama's first year in office climbed and plummeted like a rollercoaster ride.

Many in China will recall Obama's kind words and friendly gestures in a state visit last November, when he told young people in a City Hall-style meeting in Shanghai that America could learn from China because of its great history and culture. While his words still echo in the ears of many, his actions since may stick in others' throats.

The Obama administration has decided to sell updated and advanced weapons to Taiwan, and the president will meet the Dalai Lama this spring, an about-turn from last year when Beijing succeeded in dissuading him from meeting Tibet’s spiritual leader in exile. More measures to curb China’s imports will be introduced and, according to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the White House will press Zhongnanhai to promote cyber freedom.

China reacted angrily to oppose the US arms sales to Taiwan, its major political and military rival, and responded immediately by conducted a successful anti-missile test. Although diplomatically the Chinese government brushed aside any claim that the test was its reaction to the arms sales, its timing spoke for itself.

Clinton’s stance on Internet freedom was highly public backing for US search-engine giant Google's threat to pull out of China over alleged Beijing-supported hacking of its clients' e-mail accounts. While many in China see the company's move more as a business trick to gain favors for market expansion, US-based groups on Sunday called on their government to challenge China's "firewall" at the World Trade Organization.

Beijing that same day reiterated its rejection of claims the government was involved. (See Echoes of ideologies clashing, Asia Times Online, January 25)

All this suggests that the "honeymoon" for Sino-US relations after Obama was sworn in a year ago is over. The US now seems intent on reapplying the carrot and stick of "engagement and containment" toward China. Under such a policy, Sino-US relations will be both cooperative and confrontational.

Times have changed, however, and the issues that call for cooperation and cause confrontation have changed with them.

In regard to international affairs, China and the US tend to be more cooperative. As China rises as a world power, the US needs its cooperation to deal with issues such as the fight against terrorism and transnational crimes, stabilizing the global economy, denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, Iran's nuclear program, and climate change, to name but a few.

On the other hand, China wants to take its due responsibilities in international affairs. As such, both need and intend to be more cooperative.

During the Cold War and even for a period afterward, dealing with such issues would have caused confrontation. Today, confrontation is largely limited to "traditional" bilateral issues such as Taiwan, Tibet, trade and human rights. On these issues, the two have conflicts of interest and different values that mean they cannot be easily resolved. China has a keen national interest to defend, and thus always suspects the US wants to contain its rise by making use of them whenever Washington thinks it convenient.

This feature of Sino-US relations has become more prominent under Obama’s presidency. This makes the development of Sino-US ties easier to predict: whether cooperation or confrontation is the menu du jour largely depends on whether the issue is international or bilateral.

This shows that China and the US have yet to find the means to develop their relations in a strategic and stable framework, although both, especially China, like to characterize their current relationship as strategic. Clearly, the US still lacks a clear-cut and coherent policy toward China.

When president Bill Clinton came to power in 1993, he changed his predecessor George H W Bush's containment policy toward China in lieu of engagement. In its second term, the Clinton administration announced a "constructive strategic partnership" with China.

George W Bush’s administration viewed China as a strategic competitor, and then, after 9/11, in the words of one of Bush's senior aides, as a stakeholder. While Obama wants a "strategic partnership" with Beijing, he decides to sell advanced weapons to Taiwan and to meet the Dalai Lama, whom Beijing considers a "separatist". For China, such a China policy is confusing and somehow self-contradictory.

Overall, China and the US have no serious problems in cooperating in global and multilateral affairs in which they could even formulate an informal group of two (G-2) to dominate the agenda. The main problem in their relations is that they cannot properly deal with bilateral issues. This has resulted from their opposing views and interests over these issues. For example, from a realistic perspective, for America, Taiwan is an "unsinkable aircraft carrier" in the Pacific, Yet for China, Taiwan is a part of its inseparable territory to which US arms sales are a hostile act.

In regard to Google, Beijing sees its supervision of the search engine's operations in China as being according to the country's laws and therefore a domestic affair. The White House is using the incident to press China to relax cyber-controls and promote human rights, which Beijing considers as interference in its domestic affairs. Incidentally, the US remained silent when India’s government required Google to provide private information on certain Indian citizens. Such seemingly double standards by the US can only cause distain in the Chinese government and among its people.

If conflicts between the US and China on bilateral issues continue, their cooperation in international affairs will be weakened. While different interests and values mean conflicts can never be eliminated, the crux of the matter is to reduce them through efforts toward increasing mutual understanding.

From the Chinese perspective, to avoid more and bigger confrontations and conflicts, the Obama administration could gradually abandon its hegemonic policy toward China and expand the influence of "smart" and "soft" power.

For instance, the Taiwan issue is one of China's core interests - it touches on China's history, culture, territorial sovereignty and reality, and the US should appreciate this.

Two official documents dictate US policy towards Taiwan. One is the "817" Sino-US communique, the other the US's Taiwan Relations Act. However, nowadays, the US relies on the Taiwan Relations Act, which is a domestic law of the US. That is, the US prefers to use national law rather than an international treaty to deal with Sino-US bilateral relations, ignoring and often challenging China's core interests. For China, such a hegemonic approach is both unacceptable and offensive.

Now would be an opportune time for these two big powers to consider how to form a more mature "strategic partnership" on a more friendly and constructive basis. China has its own resources, including traditional philosophy such as Confucianism and socialism, to escape the rule of power politics. Does the US and Obama have such ideas, except for abstract platitudes such as freedom, democracy and fraternity?

Dr Jian Junbo is assistant professor of the Institute of International Studies at Fudan University, Shanghai, China.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/LA26Ad02.html